Blood and Wine are Red
by DIY Sheep
Summary: What happens when you destroy a civilisation? What happens when you get a bit too dark and manipulative. Doc Eight and Seven struggle with the reality of being Time's Champion. Not very pleasant.
1. Default Chapter

One word: Prologue  
  
The Doctor sighed. 'Ace you are my friend and I love you, but you cannot wear me down,' he stated firmly. 'I am not going to do it. I have given into bad suggestions before and do you know where it got me?' He shuddered. 'Carrot juice.'  
  
'Carrot juice,' wondered Ace?  
  
'But this isn't carrot juice Professor. This is just a little trip. I'll enjoy it. Even you will enjoy it,' she lied.  
  
The Doctor turned to Ace and grabbed her by the shoulders. 'I am going to say this once and once only: There is absolutely no way on any of the planets I have ever visited in any of my life times that I am going to take you to an Ozzie Osbourne concert. I saw that TV show. I am not taking you to see someone who can barely remember his own name and bites the heads off chickens. I do have some responsibility for your education and I intend to invoke it here and now. And furthermore I am going to cancel our subscription to Foxtel. I don't think it is doing you any good. The whole of time and space to explore and I find you watching reruns of The Simpsons.' He looked at her intently. 'It is not, I repeat not,' he spluttered. 'Going to happen.... One minute it is Ozzie Osbourne and before you know it its carrot juice!'  
  
Ace was about to reply somewhat untactfully that the Doctor was losing it about this whole carrot juice thing when somebody knocked on the door of the TARDIS. This would not have been so odd, except for the fact that the TARDIS was in flight in the time vortex.  
  
'Rap tiddley rap rap.'  
  
Dead silence.  
  
'Tat tat.' They looked at each other in alarm. 'Professor? Was that what I thought it was,' she asked?  
  
'Er yes. I think it might have been, but that is impossible. We are in the vortex. It's probably just vortex turbulence,' he replied nervously as he checked the console.  
  
'And him,' asked Ace as she pointed to the man on the view screen? Rather oddly for a man apparently existing in the interstitial wilds of the time vortex he was wearing a pin stripe suit and a bowler hat. He was also waggling a piece on paper at the view screen.  
  
The Doctor clapped his hand to his chin. 'Ahh,' was all he said as he stared at the view screen?  
  
The man on the viewer was now making a series of pantomime duck like swimming motions at them. 'I think he wants to come in,' suggested Ace.  
  
'And just how am I meant to open the doors when we are in mid flight,' retorted the Doctor tartly?  
  
As if in response the man on the view screen smiled smugly and held up a small key. The Doctor's face fell as he recognised the object. That was his key. But his key was in its usual place around his neck.  
  
'Oh no,' he muttered. 'This is not good.'  
  
Then unbelievably, impossibly, but indubitably the doors slowly began to open and the man from the view screen walked into the console room.  
  
Ace could see the vortex through the open doors. It was a whirling, sucking, vicious sort of thing. How could a bloke be wandering around in it without being diced, spliced and chopped into tiny little bits of time?  
  
And how did he get in?  
  
'This is not good,' she thought.  
  
The man raised his bowler hat politely. 'The Doctor,' he asked looking between them? Bewildered Ace could only raise a finger and point.  
  
The man took out the piece of paper he had been previously waggling and handed it to the astonished Doctor. 'You are officially served. Good day.' With that he lifted his hat again and walked out the doors back into the vortex, the door closing neatly behind him.  
  
The Doctor examined the piece of paper. 'It's a supoena to testify at a trial,' he said looking up in disbelief.  
  
'Whose,' asked Ace.  
  
'Mine'  
  
..... 


	2. And a suit of shabby grey

**'He did not wear his scarlet cloak for blood and wine are read **

**And blood and wine were on his hands when they found him with the dead'**  
  
...........  
  
**THE STORY BEGINS WITH A MAN...  
  
**The loneliest man in the world: The loneliest man in the universe. The most wretched, the most hated, the most pathetic, the most despised, the most haunted, the most vilified, the most alone - the saddest man.  
  
The crowds clustered around, whispering and pointing, twitching and twittering amongst themselves with the sheer horror of the scandal.  
  
He was a picture of penitence:  
  
Sitting on the floor within the light, knees drawn up to the chin, trying to ignore the babble of the voices from the surrounding darkness but feeling the emotions and thoughts that filled the air all the same. Knowing what it meant – and blood and wine were on his hands – but at the same time trying not to know.  
  
He did not wear his scarlet coat:  
  
The once long hair had been carelessly hacked short. The silk, linen and velvet replaced by shabby grey. The head, once held proudly high, permanently bowed.  
  
Only the shoes – the shoes given to him so long ago – the shoes that by pure chance had fitted so well – only the shoes remained as a sad reminder of happier days.  
  
He stared at the shoes.  
  
...........  
  
'Everyone is sorry after the fact.'  
  
'Bit late then isn't it.'  
  
'He knew what he was doing. They all do: The Taker, the Saviour, the Lover, the Zealot, the Believer. Different reasons, but all the same. Always the same outcome.' There was a sigh. 'No, it doesn't change anything.'  
  
'Think he is sorry?'  
  
There was a pause.  
  
'Yes. Yes I think he is.'  
  
'Still – a bit late for that now isn't it.'  
  
............


	3. The Old Bailey

...........  
  
Everything was as it should be. As courtrooms should be the courtroom was hot and stuffy. Through the courtroom windows you could see it was going to be a beautiful day – out there.  
  
The judges sat at the bench in their gowns and wigs – their gavels at the ready.  
  
The court officials danced around each other in a waltz of bureaucratic self importance swapping pieces of paper and nodding seriously to each other.  
  
The public gallery was alive with the burble of the thrill seekers, the sobs of little old ladies, the arousal in the eyes of the voyeurs, the god fearing silence of the self righteous, the time weary sighs of the press, the very quiet chuckles from old adversaries and even older friends, and the odd bleat from an overexcited Dalek.  
  
There was only one man in the court who seemed out of place. One lone spectator sat silently amongst the rabble of the gallery. His frock coat was immaculate. His long dandyish hair hung over his delicate features. He leant heavily on his cane as he surveyed the courtroom with distaste, sadness etched across his face.  
  
...........  
  
As the bailiff banged his staff down an excited hush fell across the courtroom. All were waiting for the accused...  
  
And shaven head and feet of lead:  
  
He shuffled in his chains as he was brought to the front of the dock to stand and face the hostile courtroom. He looked small and fragile against the two guards towering above him. Wasn't he meant to be taller? Didn't everyone say he was tall? He shouldn't look short. He can't be short. It is just not right.  
  
The prisoner looked about him as hundreds of pairs (or in some cases – sets) of eyes bored into him and battered him with their emotions until he could bear it no more and he turned his eyes downwards.  
  
Everything was as it should be.  
  
The clerk of the court stood. 'The court will come to order,' he announced. And with those solemn and time honoured words it began.  
  
...........  
  
'The prisoner us charged with the willful destruction of the society of Gallifrey and it's obliteration from the past, the present and the future of time and space. How do you plead?'  
  
When they found him with the dead:  
  
'Guilty.'  
  
...........  
  
The prisoner was about to take the stand. Everyone held their collective breath as he was painstakingly escorted to the witness stand.  
  
They did not let him swear an oath for oaths are for beings of honour and he had none. They merely asked him if he would 'solemnly promise to tell the truth?'  
  
...........  
  
'I...' He tried to defend himself but he could not find the words. He merely ended up looking down as he tugged his hands neurotically against their bindings.  
  
'You were so arrogant. You dared to think you were 'Time's Champion,' sneered the prosecutor.  
  
'And what did you do with you self appropriated responsibility?' You used it for destruction. You destroyed planets in the name of your self righteous cause. And then eventually so buoyed by your own self importance you destroyed your own people.'  
  
The prosecutor came close. 'Utterly,' it spat and the prisoner flinched.  
  
'Out of existence.'  
  
The prisoner bowed his head lower.  
  
...........  
  
It is reported by some that the prisoner was heard to mutter the words 'yet each man kills the thing he loves', but this may be mere speculation or something conjured up by historians to make their books seem more dramatic.  
  
........... 


End file.
